Rex Barber

Ads for the position have been published, a search firm has been hired and the process is moving along for selecting the next president of East Tennessee State University.
Current ETSU President Paul Stanton Jr. plans to retire from his post in January. He has been president since succeeding Roy Nicks in 1997.
Monica Greppin, communications director for the Tennessee Board of Regents, the governing body that oversees ETSU, said the search firm Greenwood/Asher & Associates will collect applications for the school’s presidency. The TBR sent out requests for proposals to get a search firm and Miramar Beach, Fla.-based Greenwood/Asher submitted the lowest bid at $79,000, plus incidental expenses, for the service of assisting in finding the next ETSU president, Greppin said.
Greenwood/Asher is a women-owned firm, according to a company letter sent to the TBR with the RFP. The president of the company, Jan Greenwood, said in the letter she has been conducting executive searches since 1992. Greenwood and her partner Betty Turner Asher have both been professors and presidents of universities.
The TBR usually hires a search firm to find presidents at its universities, Greppin said.
“It brings in obviously, you know, a broader group of applicants,” Greppin said of using search firms.
Advertisements for the position have appeared on the websites of the industry publications Chronicle of Higher Education and Diverse Issues in Higher Education. These publications also will run the ads in their print editions. The industry employment website HigherEdJobs.com also will post the position from Tuesday through Aug. 19.
As part of the search process, schools typically form search advisory committees that include students, staff, faculty, alumni and other representatives from the community. According to documents from the TBR website, the advisory committee includes the TBR chancellor and a board member designated as the chairman. Additionally, there must be two faculty members, one of whom is the Faculty Senate president; two students, one of whom is the Student Government Association president; one alumnus; one support employee; one administrator and others considered appropriate.
The search committee should be finalized by next week, Greppin said. The first committee meeting is tentatively scheduled for Aug. 22.
One of the main tasks for the committee at this first meeting will be to establish a schedule for selecting finalists for the presidency. There are typically three to five finalists selected for interviews.
“It looks like we expect, or hope, to have it wrapped up by late October,” Greppin said. “But, of course, the advisory committee will have to vote on a schedule. We’ll propose a schedule to the search advisory committee but the committee will have to vote and say this schedule will work for us or it won’t.”
The primary role of the advisory committee will be to screen candidates who have applied for the job of president and select finalists for interviews. TBR Chancellor John Morgan will then consider the committee’s views on each candidate and the views of anyone else in making a recommendation to the full Board of Regents. The Regents will then accept or decline that recommendation.
In late May the Northeast Tennessee delegation of lawmakers to the General Assembly sent a letter to Richard Manahan, ETSU’s vice president for university advancement and president and CEO of the ETSU Foundation, encouraging him to apply to become the ninth president of ETSU.
Manahan said at the time he would take the endorsement under advisement as the presidential search moved forward.